Trending

Nissan unveils DeltaWing supercar

This Le Mans supercar will do the race using half as much fuel as other cars – and it's quicker, too

13 March 2012/15:47GMT

Nissan is on a mission to push the boundaries of car manufacturing so we can give petrol engines a second chance – and judging from its first DeltaWing effort we’re more than willing to offer gas guzzlers a lifeline.

The Batmobile look-a-like was built when Nissan teamed up with DeltaWing Racing to create a car with half the fuel consumption of traditional Le Mans track cars – and one that wears down half as many tyres, too. The DeltaWing's sexy shape came about purely as a functional means of reducing drag and weight to achieve that target – which it has done – halving the weight and drag of the car. That means it’s capable of 300bhp in spite of the measly 4-cylinder 1.6ltr turbo engine. And it does the whole course using half the fuel of the other, potentially slower cars.

DeltaWing is a type of aerodynamic design that has previously only been used for planes like Concorde, the Vulcan bomber, and the Tornado. Now the technology has finally filtered down to ground level in this 575kg supercar. It'll be appearing at the next Le Mans as an example of what is possible for the future of racing as an eco-friendly sport.

The Nissan DeltaWing will also be used as a testing bed to develop technology for road cars of the future. That’s right, we could all soon be driving around in Batmobiles. Just don’t ask us to park them.